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Midway was recently at a crossroads for their Blitz product. After losing the NFL license because of the EA deal, Midway claims to have been almost relieved that now they could finally make an unlicensed product the way they wanted to do it all along. After playing Blitz: The League for a few months, I can tell that the guys at Midway had some fun making this game. But would we have fun playing it?

First off, I do have to admit a bias against the "Blitz" games. I have never been a big fan of the style of football presented by the Blitz series in the past. To me, the "Ultra Arcadey" feel of the series seems fine as a 5 minute play coin-op game at the local bar, but trying to play some kind of "Season" mode of any of the Blitz games on a home console always left me a little flat. The stats are often crazy, the big plays are so frequent that they ceased to be special, and the cheap shots are fun only for about 5 minutes. The question is, would this new-era "Blitz" title win me over? Blitz: The League does have a great deal going for it. I'm especially fond of the visuals and the ultra-gritty representation of the players, fields, and venues. It reminds me of the film "Any Given Sunday", and I'm sure Midway did this on purpose. Make no mistake, Blitz is the grittiest, nastiest football game ever made. You have cheerleaders that do mo-capped stripper moves, players dropping F-bombs with regularity, broken bones, cheap shots, multi-game injuries, simulated "chemical enhancements" for the players that have various durations of use during the game, options to treat or not treat players (thereby letting them try to play injured), and much more "grit" than we've ever seen before. The visuals are well-done, or at least to a point. The player models are highly detailed, even though there seems to be a very "washed-out" look on the players and uniforms that seems to be a deliberate symptom of the "darker" presentation of the fields. Overall, the graphics are pretty darn good for "late current-gen", and there's very little bad that can be said about the visuals overall. Player detail is quite excellent, and you can customize the gear, look, and name of every player on the custom team that you'll be taking through the B:TL season. I will say that some the animations are a bit weak in some areas. For whatever reason, the WRs don't often track the ball (they just automatically catch them when it hits them in the back.) However some animations, like QB evades and escapes from within the pocket, are well done. So there's a bit of an inconsistency there. Sound is another strongpoint of the game. The sound comes from a very "on the field" audio presentation of the players barking obscenities at each other, taunting, making hits, you name it. B:TL does a fine job of placing you on the field and letting you hear the sounds you'd expect to hear at that level. This is expected though, because both sounds and visuals have always been a focus of most of Midway's titles, and this game continues that trend. The core mechanic of the single player B:TL experience is this: First, you create your own custom team, name it, pick its uniform colors, logo, and location. At that point, you can customize everything about that team (except the player ratings.) You also pick 1 rookie "star" from a pool of several stars available. (However, these "Star" rookies must keep their default name because they are used later in cut scenes, etc… so don't expect to be able to edit the name of the rookie you pick.) At that point, the game goes into a few cut scenes about the events surrounding your team and why they need to win this year. You get some background between a local politician and your team owner, and your down-and-out head coach with a gambling problem. Its truly gritty, and torn straight from "Any Given Sunday" and "Playmakers". Then, you actually start playing football in the first division tier. And, unfortunately, that's when things start to fall apart for Blitz: The League. Despite every warning that Midway's designers were given by many gamers on the Operation Sports boards (where "BlitzKraig"- one of the game's designers sought feedback for the game as it was being designed)- Midway still kept the actual football play "Softcore" and "Ultra Arcadey". In typical old-school "Blitz" fashion, you deal with 1st and 30 every series, easily completed passes, 3 man offensive lines, HUGE speed bursts, and what equates to "Bullet-Time" where you can slow down time (using a refillable big-play meter) and make your plays as the defense is in slow motion and you take-off like a bat out of hell. Make no mistake, this game is mostly about offensive shootouts, just like the original "NFL Blitz". And that is where Midway lost me on this title. True, the lack of an NFL license allowed Midway to be creative and make a fictional, gritty league with lots of swearing, ugly injuries, steroid-abuse, adult themes, and other hardcore stuff- but the on field gameplay is exceptionally soft-core arcade fare. Despite all the grit and guile with the sounds, visuals, and circumstances- its still the same un-officiated, 3 down linemen, 1st and 30 scorefests we've played before from Midway. There's a place for that, but I don't find it to be much to the liking of many people who know, love, and enjoy a quasi-realistic game of football. In short, this game is in-your-face hardcore attitude, but with the most simplistic, non-strategic, ultra-dumb-a-fied arcade football engine around. Are the games close? Sure, many are close. This is mostly because AI is rather cheap, and can sometimes complete big-plays at will. As the AI gets positive yards, the "Unleashed" meter gets filled completely and almost guarantees a HUGE play potential on the next play- and the same thing goes for your own offensive march down field. The problem I run into is that "big plays" are only "fun" or "special" if they relatively rare. With B:TL, they happen with annoying frequency for both you and the AI, and it cheapens them pretty quick, and they ceased to be that darned exciting for me personally. The same goes for the exaggerated injuries. Their "cool" factor wears thin because of the sheer frequency of them. There is a bit of "role-playing" involved in improving your team, and wagering on your games to get more money to buy training equipment and uniform equipment that automatically boosts attributes. You will find you eventually need those improvements as you march up the ranks. Unfortunately, in your season- there's no real playoff system. You usually have to win about 7 of 9 division games, then you play a strong team that the game says is the reigning champion of that respective division. At that point, you beat that team to progress to the next competition tier. Of course, you continually buy improvements for your squad to help them perform better (equipment, "chemical" enhancers, etc.) Players also get hurt regularly, and certain "drugs" help them shave weeks off of their time in rehab, etc. There's also cut-scenes that advance the storyline of the game with some off-the field situations, but I found that it did very little to suck me into the game. Sure, the cutscenes are gritty, but totally non-interactive. Perhaps if the on-the-field product delivered a bit more, I'd care more about the extraneous lives of my players. As it stands, the presentation becomes more "filler" than anything. Still, I will hand it to Midway that they did add a cool feature for B:TL's online play. Your own custom team can be taken online and used against other people's hand-developed custom teams. Kudos to Midway for having this neat feature, because I don't think its been done before on console football games. Unfortunately, game didn't hold my attention for more than a couple of weeks. Midway made a controversial, gritty fictional-league football game, but sadly the actual "football" part of the game is what sinks the product to an arcadey "been there, done that, same old Blitz" offering. The best way I can describe "Blitz: The League" is a "schizophrenic" title that has a hardcore attitude, but with disturbingly soft-core/juvenile gameplay. Because of this, Blitz: The League's replay value suffers quickly. Perhaps in the future the gang at Midway will listen to the football gaming community when they try to tell them to make their series a bit more realistic and less "coin-op-ish". Still, there is some fun to be had here, but I'd strongly encourage a rental first- especially if you happen to find that you enjoy some semblance of strategy and thinking with your football game.

 

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